


Leonard McCoy Does Not Have a PhD in Love

by midnightlover



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, sickbay is not a prophylactic shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-21
Updated: 2012-06-21
Packaged: 2017-11-08 06:13:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightlover/pseuds/midnightlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones didn’t sign up with Starfleet to be a goddamn sex therapist and prophylactic shop. And for once, it's not all Jim's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leonard McCoy Does Not Have a PhD in Love

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, just something silly that popped into my head while I was working on another Kirk/McCoy fic.

No one ever tells you that serving on a Starfleet ship is like going back to high school, except with more near-death experiences and less homework. All penned up in one place, with months between shore leave, and it’s like everyone has turned into a goddamn hormonal teenager again, complete with awkward sexual tension, ridiculous drama, and cheap, bad booze.  
  
His sickbay is full of a never-ending stream of ensigns and junior officers, needing everything from contraceptives (Bones is at least glad he hasn’t had to deliver a baby yet) to treatments for the occasional bout of Bajoran herpes. And then there are the criers. There are days when Bones feels like a fucking guidance counselor rather than a doctor, awkwardly listening to a young ensign blubber about the young man in engineering that he’s been pining over since they left Risa on their last shore leave.   
  
He’s a doctor, damnit, and yeah he’s got counseling training because fuck if Starfleet didn’t cover all the bases in their medical training, but it doesn’t make it any less awkward and there’s more than one day when it drives him to indulge in an extra glass of the shitty replicated bourbon that is the preferable alternative to whatever swill Scotty is turning out as hooch these days (he’s treated more than enough of the crew who’ve had the unfortunate task of sampling said hooch to know better than to drink it himself). Bones didn’t sign up with Starfleet to be a goddamn sex therapist and prophylactic shop.  
  
The ensigns are bad enough, but it’s the fucking command staff that drives him up the wall. The first time Spock came into sickbay, looking uncomfortable as all hell, asking for “silicone-based lubricate safe for human use” was the first time he seriously considered drinking Scotty’s paint thinner rather than stay conscious enough to want to know the details behind the request. Worse was seeing Uhura the next day, looking smug as all fuck and Spock walking just a bit stiffly down the corridors.   
  
Then there was Chekov and his horrible, totally visible crush on Sulu. Yeah, the kid is actually the only one who probably should still be in high school, but he’s smart as a whip when it comes to everything but personal relationships and Bones feels like maybe someone missed out on giving the kid the birds and the bees talk because he has No. Fucking. Clue. that the looks Sulu is shooting him over dinner in the mess hall are basically a flamingly obvious invitation to get down and dirty with the pilot.  
  
It took two weeks of Pavel mooning and Sulu all but dropping trou on the bridge before Bones pulled the kid aside, handed him the standard ‘human sexual encounter’ kit (fucking horribly named, if you asked him—why not just call it the fucking “fuck me” kit and be done with it?) and told him to get it over with already before Sulu spontaneously combusted during his shift.  
  
At least Scotty hasn’t come to him for anything yet, though he figures Gaila’s got that pretty well in hand (there’s an image he didn’t need) considering that she hasn’t been seen anywhere but engineering and he Hears Things that he really doesn’t want to know. And apparently Scotty is an artist as well as an engineer because the next bottle of booze that finds its way into his office for testing has a rather elaborate drawing of a naked Orion girl on the homemade label and it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to guess who posed for that tasteful portrait.  
  
And then there’s Jim. He expected Jim to be his most frequent visitor and had requested extra supplies from Starfleet in anticipation, but Jim’s only been to see him for actual injuries and the occasional chat about the day and whatever latest ridiculous engineering experiment has landed twenty ensigns in sickbay with burns on their asses. There are nights where Jim joins him for a drink and gets this look on his face, like he wants to say something, but whatever it is, he never does and they just drink and shoot the shit and it’s like they’re back at the Academy—if he squints hard and has a second drink, he can’t see the gold command tunic anymore or the haunted look Jim’s eyes after an away mission when they lose four crew members to an attack none of them expected.  
  
Jim is all smiles and bravado with the crew and they love him for it, and he loves them in return, but not in the way that Bones had braced himself for when they shipped out. As far as he knows, Jim hasn’t touched a single ensign in a non-brotherly way since they graduated and it’s starting to wear on his nerves because he knows Jim Kirk and Jim doesn’t go ten months without screwing something.  
  
It’s an away mission that finally drives him over the edge. They’re on yet another godforsaken planet, surrounded by its willing, beautiful humanoid inhabitants and there are plenty of crew members who wander off from the treaty celebration with one or more of their new friends. Jim is surrounded by women, and more than a few men, entertaining them with tales of the Enterprise’s adventures, but when the party breaks up, Jim leaves alone and Bones has fucking had it.   
  
He waits a short amount of time before he follows Jim back to the wing of the palace that they’ve been invited to stay in. Every member of the away team who had permission to come down has got a room to themselves and he can hear the sounds of enthusiastic crew members and their new friends having fun behind closed doors and knows tomorrow morning he’ll need hyposprays for hangovers and probably some new strain of STD that he’ll have to figure out a cure for somehow. Bastards.  
  
He finds Jim’s rooms easily enough—they’re right next to the ones he’s been given—and doesn’t even bother to knock even though his momma raised him better than that. But he doesn’t knock and it’s the one time he should of, because Jim is laying on the disgustingly large bed, naked as a jaybird, panting Bones’ name as he fucks his hand until he comes, hard.   
  
Bones doesn’t know what the fuck to do, other than stand there and stare because it’s Jim and he’s wanted the man in one way or another since sometime halfway through their first year at the Academy, and he’s harder than he’s ever been in his life, knowing that Jim is getting off to thoughts of him. He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat when he realizes what the fuck he just saw and it’s loud enough to make Jim turn in his direction, panic in his unnervingly bright blue eyes.  
  
“Bones?” he rasps, his voice still husky from the remnants of his orgasm and Bones just can’t fucking take it and flees the room like some goddamn coward instead of jumping Jim like he desperately wants to. He runs outside, into the perfectly cultivated gardens of the palace, finding refuge finally under the closest thing he’s seen to a willow tree since they left Earth (even if its leaves are blue and white instead of green). He sits there and tries not to think of anything, but all he can see in his mind’s eye is the picture of Jim, naked and writhing as he jerks off, chanting his name. It’s the fucking sexiest thing he’s ever seen and it frustrates the hell out of him that his erection just won’t go away because he’s not getting himself off in the gardens of some alien palace like a horny teenager.  
  
He sits under that tree for what seems like hours (but is actually maybe ten minutes or so) until he hears footsteps. He knows what’s coming and braces himself for it—Jim will laugh it off as a joke, call him a pervert, and they’ll go back to acting like nothing happened, even if Bones will never be able to come again without thinking of Jim chanting his name like it’s the only thing grounding him to the world.  
  
“Bones?” Fuck, he can’t do this. The insecurity in Jim’s voice cuts at him like a hacksaw and he presses the heels of his hand against his eyes, willing himself not to act like a fucking teenage girl about all this.   
  
“Bones, I’m sorry.” He doesn’t look up at Jim, but he can hear the man awkwardly shifting from foot to foot, a habit he knows is something Jim does only when he’s truly nervous. It doesn’t alleviate his own internal panic at all, to know Jim is just as freaked about this as he is. “I know you’re not into me like that and I never meant for you to find out, especially not in that way.”  
  
He thinks for a moment that he’s lost his hearing, because there’s a rushing in his ears when he hears Jim’s words. Not into me, echos in his mind and the realization that Jim actually thinks he wouldn’t want this is enough of a metaphorical slap to the face for him to look up. Jim isn’t looking at him, staring at the ground like someone just kicked his puppy and Bones knows it’s that damnable lack of self-worth (fuck the man’s stupid stepfather for giving the kid no reason to think he’s worth anything) that he hides behind the bravado that is making his captain and best friend look like he’s waiting for a slap and a reprimand.   
  
“Damnit, Jim,” His voice feels rusty, like he hasn’t used it in months, but he doesn’t care because Jim is hurting and it’s not the doctor in him that wants to fix it but the man who desperately loves the ridiculous son of a bitch in front of him and has for as long as he can remember. “Of course I want you, you bastard.”  
  
“I know, I—wait, what?” Jim blinks rapidly and Bones can’t help but grin, having finally made the great James T. Kirk speechless. He’s pretty sure no one else in the galaxy has done it before and it warms his crooked, broken heart to see the hope in Jim’s eyes when his words finally sink in. “Really?”  
  
“Yeah.” He crooks a finger at Jim and the younger man sinks to his knees beside Bones on the colorful grass, the beginnings of a grin forming at the corners of his damnably pretty mouth. “You do that a lot?”  
  
He doesn’t have to elaborate—Jim knows what he means and there’s the faintest touch of color to his cheeks when he answers. “More than you could guess. You’re ridiculously sexy, Bones.”  
  
He hasn’t been called sexy since the first couple of months of his marriage and it makes him grin (and he’s not blushing, fuck no he’s not because he doesn’t do that) and grab Jim by the front of the ugly tunic the locals gave him to wear to the party, pulling the other man close enough so that he can feel Jim’s breath on his cheek. “How long?”  
  
“Since the shuttle,” Jim’s voice is low and his hand is trailing a lazy path over Bones’ bicep, then down his chest and right to the place where Bones wants it most. “Should have said something sooner, saved us both the trouble.”  
  
“Probably,” Bones agrees, but he knows he wasn’t ready for it until now, they were both too fucked up at the start to do anything but hurt each other. But now Jim is palming his cock through his uniform pants and smirking and it’s so Jim to go right from a big emotional moment straight into unbuttoning his fly, lowering himself down Bones’ body to take his cock into that pretty mouth and Bones knows everything is going to be okay because it’s Jim’s name he groans as he comes, like it’s been for years, but this time it’s Jim and not his own right hand that buttons him up again after he’s done, grinning like a fucking idiot, and Bones knows everything is finally fucking right in their ridiculous little world.


End file.
